FrightFest

6/10 - didn't really connect with this one. The Trickster... just looked too much like Dobby.

Loved the practical effects and monsters, but it felt a little horror-lite at times and I wasn't wholly sure about the ending. Nevertheless, a very good first horror movie from the director for whom this was clearly a labour of love. I'd be interested to see further exploration of the mythos and creatures in a sequel. 7 / 10

Loved the monster character designs and it was well put together, but pretty lacking other than that.

The trickster death scenes felt like Nightmare on Elm Street supporting character dream deaths, but without any (limited) character backstories to support their method of elimination.

The director seemed like a great bloke, so all power to him for future projects.

I wanted to like it. The puppets and monsters were great but the acting, story and just the general look of the thing were... lacking.

The bullying angle was obviously something the director - nice chap - felt very strongly about, but it just didn't have any impact. In fact nothing did - the summoning of the Trickster, the smashing of the pumpkins (see what I did there), the weirdly pointless epilogue in the lunatic asylum - nothing had any oomph, it all felt flat.

Kind of like the first five minutes of Halloween re-imagined and stretched out to feature length. 80s homage and nice practical effects are all very well but it requires a little bit more than that to make a decent film. There's zero tension and it's not scary in the slightest. It's not even much fun. The Trickster is like a shit Golem in orange prison fatigues. 3/10

For me it was like an episode of Are you Afraid of the Dark with the tiresome cookie cutter characters, typical simple plot and unimaginative kills. The trickster character was excellent (im a sucker for rhyme) and I liked the puppets in the circus part, but I felt that some of the effects were poor (the big spider looked like it was made from rubber tubing and the scarecrow was wearing boots under his branch feet). The 'bulk' character and the main character made such unbelivable choices in the film that it ruined my emmersion (Oh a pie in the middle of a forest, i'mma gunna eat it!) Also the characters seemed confused about what a Gourd was but knew what a tallow wick was.

It had a lot of potential but soon devolved into a boring goosebumps episode.